


a joy to finally meet you

by above_the_fold



Series: agostina [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Adorable Joanna McCoy, But I was too tired to start tagging, Criticism Welcome, Dammit Jim, Established James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Family, Family Feels, Fluff, Gay Space Dads whoo, Hangover, I also don't really ship Jim and Bones but someone made me do it, I don't do ratings but T for my potty mouth I guess, Ice Cream, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, Sassy Joanna McCoy, She definitely gets that from her father, She doesn't get that from her father, Starfleet Academy, Sugar highs, Then again, There are people who eat it with cheese, This was supposed to be up last night, Who the hell eats strawberry ice cream on top of apple pie, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:21:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25978903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/above_the_fold/pseuds/above_the_fold
Summary: He’s leaning heavily in the doorframe, already feeling the onset of a massive hangover. Joanna studies him silently and he studies her right back, as best he can through bleary eyes. God, she looks so much like Bones—but not in any obvious ways, which are all the ways that matter, and that pleases him to no end (he’s heard all about Jocelyn’s shit and can’t help the vindictive pleasure he suddenly takes in seeing that Joanna is truly her father’s daughter.) She’s got her arms crossed, dark eyes narrowed up at him, and—Jesus, she even leans all her weight on her left leg like Bones.He waits with bated breath.“I’m hungry, Mister Jim,” she says with an accent as thick as her father’s, and Jim’s brain short-circuits.(He’s a goner.)-Jim Kirk finally meets Joanna McCoy. Fic and series titles from "Agostina" by Puscifer.
Relationships: James T. Kirk & Joanna McCoy, James T. Kirk & Joanna McCoy & Leonard "Bones" McCoy, James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Joanna McCoy & Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Series: agostina [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885546
Comments: 18
Kudos: 115





	a joy to finally meet you

**Author's Note:**

> I finally start college next week and since it's my first time in college I have zero clue how it'll affect anything here.
> 
> I read in some other fic that Jocelyn McCoy's maiden name (or possibly her new married name??) is Darnell. I borrowed it regardless of whether it's canon or not because I was scrambling. Thank you to whoever's responsible for its inception. 
> 
> Please enjoy!

For once, he’s shit-faced and completely sober about it.

The weekend is over before it’s even begun, and that was reason enough to find the bar. Their Tactical Analysis exams were returned and where Bones managed to scrape by, Jim has flat-out failed for the third time. Pike expects him in his office Monday morning so he can have his ass chewed out ( _ not _ for the third time) and sent back to take the exam again.

The Kobayashi Maru simulation room is booked for a solid  _ month _ —not that he could sign up for a third attempt even if he wanted to right now. Fucking academic probation. Their afternoon Astrogation lecture had bored him nearly to tears, until Lieutenant Grodnick had announced next week’s exam and his boredom had turned to righteous indignation.

Bones had left him outside the Astrogation building with a sound kiss and a hurried goodbye—his daughter has arrived for the week and he couldn’t be happier, but Jim knows he’s stressed about having her up at the Academy. He still has class and clinicals to attend, and though the Academy has a day center for the kids of its graduate and medical students, Bones refuses to leave her there. He and Jim have worked out their shifts and schedules so that she won’t be alone all day—Uhura, as a favor solely to Bones, has even agreed to watch Joanna on Friday afternoon while he sits a Xenobiology exam and Jim does… whatever Jim does on Friday afternoons. It’s a solid plan, but Jim knows it pains Bones to get his daughter all the way to California and not have time to spend with her.

But he had been grinning widely (grinning! Bones!) as he rushed off to catch a transport, and Jim had headed off in search of a drink. Two drinks. Several of them.

It’s going on 2200 hours by the time he drops a fistful of credits on the table and heads, slightly unsteady, for the door. It was a good night, spent in the company of a group from Astrogation who were happy to share a few rounds and a collective “fuck you” to Lieutenant Grodnick and his ill-timed exam. After his seventh drink, though, he remembers Bones and their visitor, and he slurs some excuses and leaves feeling guilty as hell—and not for letting down the pretty girl behind the bar. 

He comms Bones once he reaches campus, already anticipating the earful he’ll get for showing up like this in front of a—well, he’s not exactly sure how old Joanna McCoy is. But he has enough sense to know that kids shouldn’t see adults like this (enough sense to know, but not enough to actually  _ do. _ )

“McCoy here.”

“Bones, it’s me. I’m on my way.” He tries as hard as he possibly can to keep his voice level even as he stumbles a little on the curb. “Listen, is Joanna still awake? I want to meet her.”

“Jim—’scuse me, Nurse Taylor— _ Jim!  _ You still aren’t back yet?”

Of course he’s not back yet; this is already an early night for him, and for a moment the absurdity of the question makes him want to laugh. 

Until he remembers. 

“Why? Where are you?”

“On call,” he growls. “There was an emergency and now I’m stuck here—look, Jim, I thought you’d be at the apartment hours ago. I told Jo…” 

And now Jim’s sprinting, pounding head and all, across the quad and toward their apartment. “You  _ left  _ her there? By—by herself?” He’s no expert, but clearly neither is Bones.

“Did I have another option?” Bones snaps. “No kids allowed in medical—at the bar, neither, last time I checked.”

Of course Bones knows where he was. The guilt is back, piercing through his drunken haze, and with it, sudden shame. “I’m on my way,” he says again, by way of an apology. 

“Yeah.” Bones sounds tired—of medical, of Jim’s shit. “Just… sorry. Put her in my bed tonight. We’ll figure somethin’ else out tomorrow. Make sure she brushes her teeth. Make sure  _ you  _ brush your teeth. I hate kissin’ you when you’ve got booze breath.”

Jim smiles in the dark as he reaches their floor. “Got it. Kirk out.”

He fumbles for his key, drops it and promptly swears, and hopes Joanna isn’t alarmed by all the noise he’s making as he unlocks the door and shuffles inside. Their apartment is blessedly dark, and he starts to think she’s already asleep until he’s nearly tripping over her.

She’s sprawled out on a pile of Academy-issued sheets and pillows—both their beds are stripped bare—in the middle of the floor, eyes glued to the PADD in her hands. She doesn’t seem to notice he’s there.

He steps around her and heads for the bathroom, making a little more noise than necessary. Nothing.

So he slides the door shut and does his business, listening for any movement out in the main room. Silence. No offspring of Bones McCoy could be that unobservant. Maybe she’s just ignoring him.

Which, ouch. He’s drunk, which means he’s emotional, and Joanna McCoy doesn’t know it, but she has mattered to Jim Kirk for a long time. He’s seen the pictures Bones keeps in his wallet and at his desk and he’s laughed at the stories behind all of them. He’s popped in the background of a few vid comms (mostly half-asleep or hungover) and waved when Bones prompted him—he wonders if she remembers. Wonders what Bones has told her to call him. Wonders what she’ll say when he tells her to brush her teeth and get ready for bed—will she listen to him? He’s not her father. 

(Though part of him suddenly wishes…) 

No. He’s drunk, he’s so fucking  _ drunk,  _ and he knows he won’t remember any of this come morning. So he splashes some cold water on his face—he’s too wasted to manage a shower without Bones’ help—and when he opens the door he nearly jumps a mile as he comes face to face with little miss, standing outside the bathroom in a tangle of sheets.

He’s leaning heavily in the doorframe, already feeling the onset of a massive hangover. Joanna studies him silently and he studies her right back, as best he can through bleary eyes. God, she looks so much like Bones—but not in any obvious ways, which are all the ways that matter, and that pleases him to no end (he’s heard  _ all  _ about Jocelyn’s shit and can’t help the vindictive pleasure he suddenly takes in seeing that Joanna is truly her father’s daughter.) She’s got her arms crossed, dark eyes narrowed up at him, and— _ Jesus,  _ she even leans all her weight on her left leg like Bones. 

He waits with bated breath. 

“I’m hungry, Mister Jim,” she says with an accent as thick as her father’s, and Jim’s brain short-circuits.

(He’s a goner.)

-

“You… you’re hungry?” There’s a replicator in here, isn’t there? He starts to panic slightly. She’s clearly young, but—he was fending for himself by age five. Has she been hungry this whole time? 

“Yeah.” She’s still staring him down, and he suddenly wonders if she always looks so… intense, even when she’s not. He knows exactly where she gets that from. “Daddy got me some food before he left but that was  _ hours  _ ago.”

He spots the remains of a sandwich (she doesn’t eat the crusts, either) and a banana peel in the trash receptacle and scoffs. Like  _ that  _ would tide her over for the night. He feels guilty all over again—but this time, he can fix things. 

Jim starts toward the replicator, and then stops. When he turns Joanna is still watching him expectantly, still trailing their bedsheets behind her, and the sight of it sends something warm and infinitely more pleasant than tonight’s alcohol rushing through him. He suddenly has an idea, not far from here, and it involves one of the best hangover cures in the known universe. He pulls his PADD out of his back pocket and shoots Bones a quick message. 

“I know a place. Get your shoes.” He’s reaching again for his coat, sniffing it quickly—the bar had reeked of more than just beer—and shrugging into it.

“I’m only wearin’ pajamas.” She obediently reaches for a pair of pink boots nevertheless, and Jim has to smile at how horribly they clash with her bright purple pajamas. She doesn’t seem to care, and neither does he: they’re on a mission, after all. “Momma  _ never _ lets me go out in my pajamas.” 

That accent of hers only endears herself further to him. “So?” he says, and returns her blinding grin in spite of the pain.

-

He takes her to a diner on Reseda where the waitresses know him and Bones by name. It’s not at all busy at 2300 hours despite the 24-Hour Service sign in the window. It’s a popular favorite among the Academy cadets; it’s the only place Bones will order coffee (Americano) and ice cream (butter pecan, because there’s no other flavor and it reminds him of home.) It’s also the only place Jim will ever eat eggs, because he doesn’t have to make them himself and because he hates them otherwise. 

The walk there leaves his head throbbing and his stomach churning. Joanna doesn’t seem to notice as he holds the door open for her, and he is inwardly relieved. Bones cannot lecture him so long as he maintains an outward appearance of control. 

A cup of black coffee and a pile of scrambled eggs has been his hangover cure for the better part of three years since his less-than-auspicious start at the Academy. Before he got started working night shifts down in medical, Bones would be the one to order for him as he puked up his guts in the bathroom. He’d started frequenting the place alone in their second year, when he was more often than not a drunken mess and the waitresses’ pity made him long even worse for Bones and their failing relationship. Since they’d gotten back on track he hadn’t been in the place, and the smells of frying food and coffee brewing help settle his frayed nerves some.

“Jim Kirk, you dirty dog,” gasps one of the night waitresses as they enter. Joanna marches straight to an empty booth and turns, as if waiting for his approval. He smiles weakly, nodding, and she climbs into it. 

“Not mine,” he assures the scandalized kitchen. “McCoy’s daughter.” He joins her, grateful for a window seat so that he has something solid to lean against in Bones’ absence—not that he would get much in the way of pity from the older man, and he suspects he wouldn’t get much from the little girl across from him, either, if only she knew.

“Get whatever you want,” he says, sliding her a menu. She beams at him, clearly unaware of the hell he’s putting himself through across the table, and proceeds to read aloud with surprising fluidity for a—

—how old  _ is  _ she?

Jim stares. The dirty blonde hair, the spray of freckles across her pale face, and (presumably) the shape of her nose and mouth—those are her mother’s features, because they sure aren’t Bones’. He supposes he ought to try and figure out how old she is before he embarrasses himself, but all he sees when he looks at her is her resemblance to her father. She gives nothing away. She can’t be any older than seven (eight?) 

“So you’re what, twenty-five?” he asks her.

She scowls. “Not yet.” It’s clear she’s one of those kids who detests the fact that that’s just what she is. He almost smiles. “I’m only six. But I’ll be seven real soon. Are  _ you  _ twenty-five?”

“I sure am.”

She smiles brightly at him again. “You’re not as old as Daddy, Mister Jim.”

“You don’t have to call me ‘Mister,’” he tells her gently, reaching for the coffee the waitress has set in front of him. All he’s missing are some painkillers. And eggs, of course. 

But she’s not letting this go. “Don’t you have to be old to date my daddy?”

He chokes; Joanna shrieks as he sprays coffee across the table. “Jim!”

“You—you don’t think I’m old?” He stares, even as she rolls her eyes and starts cleaning up the mess with her pajama sleeve. 

“Not as old as Daddy,” she says again. “He’s thirty already!”

It’s closer to thirty-one—and the way he sometimes hears Bones complain, it seems like fifty-one. He silently hands her a napkin. A six-almost-seven-year-old girl has rendered motormouth Jim Kirk speechless. What does she even  _ know  _ about dating?

“Momma says you should never date someone who’s older than you are.”

Whoops, and he said it out loud.

He knows  _ exactly  _ where that attitude stems from: Jocelyn’s regrets about her marriage. Jim knows she was only an undergrad when she married Bones, who’d been halfway through med school (and clearly not thinking straight.) He knows she’s only a year older than he is himself. He finds himself scowling over the rim of his coffee mug. She blinks at him quizzically. 

“You’re a little too young to worry about dating,” he tells her, because fuck overstepped boundaries and  _ fuck _ Jocelyn Darnell, “but age isn’t important as long as you love somebody, okay?”

He stares, a little unfocused—where the hell did  _ that  _ come from? He’s not her father, certainly not her mother. Does he really mean anything to her? Enough for her to listen to him? This is important, her youth aside. He’s not a father and he never  _ had  _ a father but he knows how impressionable kids are, even one as smart as Joanna. Her mother is clearly an idiot. He’s setting the record straight, and her parents can kill him later.

But she’s nodding, so seriously that he again finds himself wondering just how old she really is. “Momma only says that ‘cause she’s still mad about Daddy leavin’. She says a lot of things about him. Like he’s a shithead. For leavin’.” 

A shithead. In front of a six-almost-seven-year-old kid. Jim expects nothing less from someone as petty as Jocelyn Darnell; but he’s more than slightly amused with Joanna. 

“Don’t swear,” he says. “You’re a lady, aren’t you?”

“No,” she huffs. “I’m six.”

He smiles with all his teeth. The waitress returns and he orders his eggs, scrambled hard (“seriously, till they’re brown”) with cheese before turning to Joanna. “Know what you want?”

She closes her menu. “Apple pie and ice cream, please!”

Jim grins again; her inevitable sugar high is something he will absolutely take responsibility for, never mind Bones’ wrath. “Apple pie and ice cream,” he nods to the waitress, who is looking at him for confirmation. 

“Eggs overdone with cheese, and apple pie with vanilla ice cream—”

Joanna’s face falls. 

“What’s wrong?” Jim asks, a little too quickly. She looks startled for a moment, and then a determined look crosses her little face, one that is all too familiar. 

“Can—can I have a different kind of ice cream?” she asks. Him, not the waitress. 

“Wha—yeah. Yes, of course you can. Right?” He looks at the waitress. “There’s other kinds of ice cream?”

“Sixteen other kinds, honey,” she says, completely smitten. She throws Jim a look. He shrugs, as if he wasn’t prepared to do whatever it took to get that little girl different ice cream. “What kind would you like?”

Jim fully expects to hear her ask for butter pecan ice cream. She doesn’t. “Strawberry, please!”

She doesn’t see his horrified look as the waitress laughs. “You got it, honey. Apple pie and strawberry ice cream.”

It has to be her favorite kind of ice cream—there’s no earthly  _ reason  _ why  _ anybody _ would eat apple pie with anything other than vanilla ice cream otherwise. Joanna beams at him. “Strawberry is the best flavor. Daddy says I’m disgusting but  _ he  _ likes butter pecan, which is even  _ more  _ disgusting, so I don’t mind. What’s  _ your  _ favorite flavor, Uncle Jim?” 

He chokes again; this time, Joanna giggles as he spits out his coffee. He cleans the table for a second time, mind racing in spite of his aching head.  _ Uncle  _ Jim? It’s better than  _ Mister,  _ but—he has a feeling Bones didn’t suggest it. When he looks up Joanna is still grinning at him, awaiting an answer, like she doesn’t know what she said. Maybe she thought Uncle Jim was just being funny when he spit out his drink. 

“Butter pecan,” he says, because he really doesn’t have a favorite, and the faint look of betrayal on Joanna’s face is adorably tragic.

“You’re disgusting, too!” she says, weirdly delighted about it. “How come you didn’t get any ice cream?” 

He makes a face just to see her smile again. “Eggs with ice cream? Gross, Jo.”

“Not on  _ top, _ ” she gasps through her laughter, and when the waitress returns with their orders, he asks for a scoop of butter pecan ice cream, and tells her they’re expecting someone else.

-

“Daddy!”

She bolts up and towards the door; Jim attempts to snag the back of her pajamas before his brain registers the word “Daddy,” and he slumps back down, letting her run and cursing the sudden motion that leaves his head ringing. Bones drops her back in her seat a moment later and sits beside him, still dressed in his scrubs and sounding exhausted as he leans forward, examining Joanna's plate, and says, "Baby… what the hell are you eating?" 

She smiles as well as she can around a mouth full of ice cream. Jim answers for her. “Apple pie and strawberry ice cream, Bones, what’s it look like?”

The tall doctor pulls a face. Jim would laugh if it didn’t hurt so much. He knows that Bones knows how hungover he is right now, from the eggs on his plate to the way he sits back and lets Joanna chatter on without a word in edgewise—and he’s intensely grateful that nothing is said about it. 

Joanna tells her father about the nice waitress and makes him have a bite of her dessert. He dutifully takes her spoon and Jim sees the horror in his eyes as he swallows.

“That’s good, Jo. Here,” he hands her the spoon and tells her it’s all hers, wholeheartedly. As she steadily works her way towards a sugar coma, Jim leans over and angles for a kiss, pouting when Bones pushes him gently away with a pointed look across the table. 

His boyfriend helps himself to Jim’s melting ice cream instead as Joanna tells them about her flight. Jim tries almost desperately to log as much about her as he can in his memory, determined not to forget a thing in spite of his hangover. The suitcase her father had gifted her for the trip was just  _ perfect  _ because it was  _ purple  _ (he mentally notes this as her favorite color.) There were two—two!—kinds of juice on the plane, and since orange juice was almost as disgusting as butter pecan ice cream, she’d had a glass of apple juice instead, since there was no chocolate milk (add both to this week’s grocery list.) 

She appears to love flying, although flying in space sounds  _ way  _ cooler than flying in Earth’s atmosphere, and when Jim promises to take her down to the Academy spacedock on Friday afternoon, her eyes grow impossibly wide. 

Bones sends Joanna to the bathroom to wash her hands, and asks for the check. Jim protests.

“I took us out, I’m paying—”

“Jim, you’re drunk,” Bones says flatly, wallet already in hand. “Will you even remember this in the morning?”

Jim thinks about the way Joanna looked at him tonight, bright-eyed and completely trusting; the sound of her laughter and the look on her face when the waitress set that slice of pie in front of her. “‘Course I will,” he says with none of his usual cocky self-assurance. It’s something softer, and it brings a smile to both their faces. 

Bones still pays the check.

-

They walk back to campus with Joanna between them, a hand in each of hers. For all the sugar she just consumed so late at night (although it’s technically morning, Jim observes but wisely doesn’t say) her little feet still drag, and since they’ve got both her hands she can’t quite muffle her yawns. Jim thinks—well, it’s fucking adorable, but Bones is frowning, so they stop and he swings her up easily in one long arm.

She won’t let go of Jim’s hand, so Bones does the next best thing and throws a heavy arm across Jim’s shoulders, pulling him so that he’s right beside her.

Jo smiles, sticky-faced and sweet, and Jim’s heart hurts as he realizes they only have a week with her before she heads back to her mother—when will be the next time she allows her to visit? He knows Bones realizes it too, if the way he holds Jo tighter is any indication. What little space is between them grows heavy, until Jo reaches back and fists a tiny hand in the sleeve of his coat, dragging him closer. 

Bones smiles in the dark and walks them both home.

-

When they reach their floor, they’re met by a group of anxious-looking cadets—friends of Bones’ emergency patient. Bones sighs and hands Jo off to an unsuspecting Jim; he nearly drops her. “Put her to bed after she brushes her teeth. I’ll come give her a kiss in a minute.” 

Jim carries her inside and after a moment’s deliberation, sets her on Bones’ bed. He pulls off her shoes and sets them by her suitcase, per her sleepy instruction, and then pulls a blanket and pillow from the pile on the floor and tucks her in.

“Anything else?” he asks, hand braced on the bunk above her as he leans down. 

“Where’re you gonna sleep?” she whispers. “In the bed with Daddy?”

“I don’t know. We’ll figure something out,” he tells her, hoping fervently that she can’t see how his face burns at the question. The practicality of the bunk beds in their apartment means he and Bones have never really shared a bed before, and that’s just fine with him—he tosses and turns far too much to be comfortable in a bed with someone else, and Bones is already too long for the mattresses in here anyway. 

But now they’ve got no other option… hm. 

“That’s what you do when you’re datin’ someone,” she informs him sleepily, and then her eyes widen and she starts to struggle out of the covers. “I forgot to brush my teeth!”

Jim, slightly annoyed that the neatly-tucked blanket has come undone, blocks her with one arm. She falls back, chewing on her bottom lip as she looks towards the door. “Daddy wants me to brush my teeth.”

It’s cute that she’s worried, but it’s close to 0100 and Bones is going to kill him if he comes in and finds her not in bed yet. Uncle Jim’s got an idea. He leans down and whispers in her ear, “I won’t tell him if you don’t.” 

Her dark eyes sparkle. “Then I won’t!” She pulls the blanket up under her chin and Jim smiles at the sight. “‘Night, Uncle Jim.”

“Good night.” He thumbs at a smear of pink ice cream on her chin, considering… no. If she’s not brushing her teeth he won’t make her wash her face either.

Bones is still out in the hallway, talking quietly with the other cadets. Jo is already sound asleep without her kiss goodnight, and a suddenly irrational part of Jim thinks  _ Well, that just won’t do.  _

He leans down and drops a light one on her cheek. Her eyes open as he’s pulling away and he nearly slams his head on the top bunk in surprise. How the  _ fuck  _ does she still have the energy to be awake this late?

“You gotta brush your teeth, Uncle Jim,” she says, so quietly he wonders if she’s actually awake. “Your breath smells. Daddy’s gonna be mad.”

And then she’s asleep again—he checks—and he’s left staring. Bones ducks down beside him a few moments later and presses a kiss to his daughter’s forehead with practiced ease before going to dismantle the pile of bedding on the floor. Something heavy and warm settles in Jim’s chest as he starts for the bathroom. 

“What are you doin’? Get over here and help me with these sheets.”

“Be right there,” he says, reaching for his toothbrush with a grin.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos appreciated; comments more so. Requests open? I think so. Hit me up if you've got ideas for this series.


End file.
